Double whole note

In music, a double whole note (American), breve (international), or double note (Baker 1895, 133; Burrowes 1874, 41) is a note lasting two times as long as a whole note (or semibreve). In medieval mensural notation, the brevis (ancestor of the modern breve) was one of the shortest note lengths—hence its name, which is the Latin etymon of "" (Read 1969, 14). In "perfect" rhythmic mode, the brevis was a third of a longa, or in "imperfect" mode half a longa (for full details of the complications here, see for example Hoppin 1978). However, in modern music notation it is the longest note value still in common use (Gehrkens 1914, 106).

In modern notation, a breve is represented in two ways: by a hollow oval note head, like a whole note, with one or two vertical lines on either side, as on the left of the image, and as the rectangular shape also found in older notation, shown in the middle of the image (Jacob 1960, 21; Read 1969, 459; Gerou and Lusk 1996, 210).

Because it lasts longer than a bar in most modern time signatures, the breve is now rarely encountered except in English music, where the half-note is often used as the beat unit (Gherkens 1914, 11). However, in time signatures where the top number is exactly twice that of the bottom, such as 4/2 or 8/4, it lasts a whole bar and so may still be found.

A related symbol is the double whole rest (double rest or breve rest), which usually denotes a silence for the same duration (Burrowes 1874, 41; Read 1969, 93). Double whole rests are drawn as filled-in rectangles occupying the whole vertical space between the second and third lines from the top of the musical staff. They are often used in long silent passages which are not divided into separate bars to indicate a rest of two bars (Read 1969, 101). This and longer rests are collectively known as multiple rests (Read 1969, 99).

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